Page 32 of Open To Negotiation

I bit my lip for a minute and watched the heavy rise and fall of his chest. “I could answer both of those questions, but I have a feeling one of them might piss you off more so… I was looking down at what I should eat for dinner.”

“Jesus, Quinn.” Theo dropped his hands from me and ran them through his hair. “What are you doing walking alone here? You don’t even live near here.”

“I could say the same to you. Well, at least the walking alone part, I have no idea where you live.”

“Quinn,” he groaned as he glared at me this time and crossed his hands over his chest. A muscle in his jaw ticked and I had to say, I liked pissing him off. “I live around the corner, I got tired of the treadmill so decided to go for a run, and I was paying attention to where I was.” He shot me a look.

“I said I was sorry about that.” I wondered if I could distract him from the situation. “And that doesn’t make me think you’re any more sane as we’ve already discussed… it concerns me that you run ‘for fun.’” I added the air quotes but nothing showed on his face.

“Are you just leaving work?”

I froze with my hand on the strap of my work bag that I was adjusting on my shoulder. “Ummm… yes… and I hope that shows you how dedicated of an employee I am and doesn’t piss you off.”

“You didn’t say you were still working.” He frowned and looked at the time on his watch.

In his last text he had asked me if I had plans tonight. I had vaguely mentioned that on Wednesdays I volunteered, I just failed to mention that this week I couldn’t make it and cancelled my shift.

“Guess it didn’t come up,” I said with a lame shrug.

His eyes narrowed. “What could you possibly be working on? You’re on my account and the kick off meeting isn’t until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Just, you know, wrapping up a few things.” I readjusted the strap of my bag again.

“Dick is making you do extra work because I told him to clear your plate. He isn’t clearing it at all.” It wasn’t a question. Theo was a businessman, he knew the deal.

“It’s fine, please don’t make a big deal out of it, Theo. I’m managing.”

He let out a sigh, uncrossed his arms and grabbed the bag from my shoulder. He had it slipped off before I really noticed.

“Hey! Are you robbing me now?” I didn’t say it too loud in case someone actually thought I was being robbed.

“No. So you haven’t eaten?” he asked as he hiked the bag on to his own shoulder and put a hand on my lower back, herding me as we turned around. He put me closest to the building so he was walking on the side of the road. I noticed it immediately when he’d done it when we were on our way to coffee, turns out it wasn’t a coincidence.

“Ah, no… I think the last thing I ate was a chocolate bar at like five but it was one of those small ones. I’m honestly not even sure how long they’d been in my drawer at work, maybe since Halloween? But those things don’t go bad, right? It’s just chocolate and sugar. Halloween is the only time I ever get…” I trailed off, realizing I’d started rambling.

He stared at me for a moment, almost like he was tracking my story back for the answer. But he didn’t seem bothered by my word vomit. “We can head to my apartment and order some food.”

“It’s okay, I was going to order food, then a car and go home. Don’t you want to finish your run?”

“I was just about done anyway. Now you’ll have food with me and Arthur will drive you home.” His hand on my back kept me walking at a good pace beside him even though with his long legs, he could have easily outpaced me.

“Fine, but only because eating alone sounds sad tonight and I’m too tired to argue.”

“Good to know, tired means less arguments. After we eat, we can talk about what the hell you were thinking.”

“You’re stubborn,” I mumbled as we made our way toward a tall glass building.

“What do you want to eat?”

“Well, I was deciding between Tacos and Greek.”

“There is a great Greek place around. If we were ordering tacos we need to go to Pedro’s and I don’t want to go over there tonight, they don’t taste as good as a take-away.” He led us toward a building and the door man buzzed us in, although he looked big enough to be security, maybe he was both.

“Good evening, Mr. Knight,” the man said as he held the door open. Theo gave him a nod and moved me toward the elevator bank. We went to the last elevator and he entered a code before the door pinged open.

“Penthouse?” I guessed. He didn’t say anything as he moved to the other side of the elevator and rested his arms on the bar behind him, his muscles flexed. It was distracting.

“I live in one and Asher lives in two.” He pointed at the PH button on the panel.